different between power vs role

English

Alternative forms

• powre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin *pot?re, from Latin possum, posse (“to be able”); see potent. Compare Modern French pouvoir. Displaced native Old English anweald.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pa??(?)/, /?pa?.?(?)/
  • (with triphthong smoothing) IPA^(key): /pa?/, /pa?/, /p??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?pa?.?/, /?pa??/, [?p?a???], [?p?a???]
• Rhymes: -a?.?(?), -a??(?)
• Hyphenation: pow?er

Noun

power (countable and uncountable, plural powers)

1. Ability to do or undergo something.
   • 2018, Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (page 74)

     If it is spirits who have power to suffer, it seems they would also have active powers to think and will.

2. (social) Ability to coerce, influence or control.
   1. (countable) Ability to affect or influence.

      • An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

      • Thwackum, on the contrary, maintained that the human mind, since the fall, was nothing but a sink of iniquity, till purified and redeemed by grace. […] The favourite phrase of the former, was the natural beauty of virtue; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace.

      • 1998, Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

        Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present.

   2. Control or coercion, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).
      • 1949, Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

        The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

      • 2005, Columbia Law Review, April

        In the face of expanding federal power, California in particular struggled to maintain control over its Chinese population.
   3. (metonymically, chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.

      Synonym: powers that be

   4. (metonymically) An influential nation, company, or other such body.
3. (physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.
   1. Physical force or strength.

   2. Electricity or a supply of electricity.
   3. A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.
   4. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.

4. (colloquial, dated) A large amount or number.

   • The threatning words of duke Robert comming at the last to king Henries eares, caused him foorthwith to conceiue verie sore displeasure against a power of men sent into Normandie.
5. Any of the elementary forms or parts of machines: three primary (the lever, inclined plane, and pulley) and three secondary (the wheel-and-axle, wedge, and screw).

   the mechanical powers

6. (physics, mechanics) A measure of the effectiveness that a force producing a physical effect has over time. If linear, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the displacement of or in an object) ÷ time. If rotational, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the angle of displacement) ÷ time.
7. (mathematics)
   1. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): ${\displaystyle x^{n}}$, read as "${\displaystyle x}$ to the power of ${\displaystyle n}$" or the like, is called a power and denotes the product ${\displaystyle x\times x\times \cdots \times x}$, where ${\displaystyle x}$ appears ${\displaystyle n}$ times in the product; ${\displaystyle x}$ is called the base and ${\displaystyle n}$ the exponent.
   2. (set theory) Cardinality.
   3. (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
8. (biblical, in the plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "power": electric, nuclear, optical, mechanical, political, absolute, corporate, institutional, military, economic, solar, magic, magical, huge, physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, sexual, seductive, coercive, erotic, natural, cultural, positive, negative, etc.

Synonyms

Antonyms

• impotence
• weakness

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? German: Power
• ? Welsh: p?er

Translations

Verb

power (third-person singular simple present powers, present participle powering, simple past and past participle powered)

1. (transitive) To provide power for (a mechanical or electronic device).

   This CD player is powered by batteries.

2. (transitive) To hit or kick something forcefully.
3. To enable or provide the impetus for.

Derived terms

• power down
• power up
• empower

Translations

Adjective

power (comparative more power, superlative most power)

1. (Singapore, colloquial) Impressive.

Further reading

• power at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• powre

German

Etymology 1

From French pauvre, from Latin pauper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?po?v?r/, [?po?v?]
• Hyphenation: po?wer

Adjective

power (comparative powerer, superlative am powersten)

1. (regional, informal) poor, miserable

Declension

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pa???r/, [?pa???]
• Homophone: Power

Verb

power

1. singular imperative of powern
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of powern

Further reading

• “power” in Duden online

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?l
• IPA^(key): /???l/
• Rhymes: -??l
• Homophone: roll

Etymology 1

From French rôle, from Middle French rolle, from Old French role, from Medieval Latin rotulus. Doublet of roll.

Alternative forms

• rôle

Noun

role (plural roles)

1. A character or part played by a performer or actor.

2. The expected behaviour of an individual in a society.

3. The function or position of something.
4. Designation that denotes an associated set of responsibilities, knowledge, skills, and attitudes

5. (grammar) The function of a word in a phrase.
   • 1984, David M. Perlmutter, Carol G. Rosen, Studies in relational grammar: Volume 2

     Examining these verbs one by one, what one finds is that Auxiliary Selection does correlate in the expected way with the two kinds of optional transitivity, confirming that with each predicate, one semantic role has a fixed link with initial 1-hood, another with initial 2-hood.

6. (object-oriented programming) In the Raku programming language, a code element akin to an interface, used for composition of classes without adding to their inheritance chain.

Hyponyms

• subrole

Derived terms

• role-based
• roleless
• roleplay

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

role (plural roles)

1. (historical) An ancient unit of quantity, 72 sheets of parchment.

References

• role on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Orel, Orle, Orël, eorl, lore, orle, relo

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?rol?]
• Rhymes: -ol?
• Hyphenation: ro?le

Etymology 1

From German Rolle, from Old French rolle, role (“parchment scroll, inventory”), from Latin rotula, rotulus (“little wheel”), which is a diminutive of rota (“wheel”).

Noun

role f

1. role, part (of an actor) [19th c.]
2. lines (spoken text of an actor playing a part)
3. role (e. g. of a person in a society)
4. (linguistics) role (function of a constituent in a clause)
5. scroll [19th c.]

Declension

Synonyms

• (of an actor): úloha, part
• (text): part
• (in a society): úloha
• (scroll): svitek

Derived terms

• roli?ka

Related terms

• rolovat
• roláda

Etymology 2

From Proto-Slavic *orl?ja, from*orati.

Noun

role f

1. (obsolete, literary) field (area to grow crops) [14th c.]
2. old unit of field measurement
3. (obsolete, literary) area, domain (of activity)

Declension

Synonyms

• (in agriculture): pole
• (domain): obor, okruh

Derived terms

• roli?ka

Related terms

Anagrams

• orel, orle

Further reading

• role in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• role in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

References

Old French

Noun

role m (oblique plural roles, nominative singular roles, nominative plural role)

1. roll; scroll (rolled up document)

Descendants

• ? English: roll
• French: rôle
  • ? English: role

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (role, supplement)

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?r?.l?/

Noun

role

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of rola

Further reading

• role in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Verb

role

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of rolar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of rolar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of rolar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of rolar

Spanish

Verb

role

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of rolar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of rolar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of rolar.
4. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of rolar.